David McElroy

I found myself involved in a couple of online debates Monday that I wasn’t happy about. In both cases, someone who disagrees with me attacked me personally about that disagreement. In both cases, I felt attacked personally and responded more harshly than I meant to. I avoid those kinds of arguments these days, so they both upset me — partly at the other people, but partly at myself.

Both of the debates were about military action around the world. The specifics don’t matter, but in both cases, the other person was attacking the idea that the United States has behaved inappropriately with some military actions around the world in the last decade or so. (In one of the cases, the woman called those of us who opposed her position “dissenters,” as though that was a vile thing to be.) The truth is that arguments such as these don’t end up being about the subjects themselves. The arguments end up very personal. They end up between two people (or more) who have very different views of the world — and it’s about each trying to convince the other than his model of reality is the correct one.

How in the world can we deal with humans living together when we see the world in so many different ways? And does it have to be this way?

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It’s Memorial Day in the United States, a day we set aside to remember men and women who’ve died in wars. Politicians make a lot of speeches today and lay a lot of wreaths, but the best way to honor the fallen would be to quit using the men and women of the military as expendable pawns in a global game for world influence.

There’s something honorable about fighting for something you believe in, and I respect the dedication and bravery of many thousands of those who’ve died. But since we can’t bring them back to life (and we can’t change the horrors they lived through), the best we can do is change how the U.S. government conducts itself around the globe so that fewer Americans will join the ones being honored today in military cemeteries — and fewer loved ones will face living without them, as the woman in the picture above had to do when her fiance was killed in Iraq in 2007.

Even if we set aside the question of the legitimacy of the state, there’s much to be gained from making U.S. foreign policy less intrusive and less aggressive. It’s not the business of the U.S. government what happens around the world, and it’s not U.S. taxpayers’ responsibility to pay for whatever happens elsewhere. It’s not U.S. soldiers’ legitimate role to die invading countries which haven’t invaded their homeland.

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Diane Tran seems to be a model of the resilience and determination we’d would love every 17-year-old to have. She’s a honor student at her high school, despite the fact she holds a full-time job and a part-time job in order to support an older brother in college and a younger sister who lives with relatives. After her parents divorced and both moved away, she’s taken on tremendous responsibility.

But that’s not enough for a Texas judge. Despite the fact that she’s an honor student and has circumstances that would be a nightmare for anyone, Judge Lanny Moriarty sent Diane to jail for 24 hours and fined her $100 — for the egregious sin of missing too many days at school.

The judge admitted that his tough treatment of Diane was to send a message to others.

“If you let one [truant student] run loose, what are you gonna do with the rest of ’em? Let them go too?” Moriarty said.

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